UNIT4 Releases Agresso Research Costing and Pricing

UNIT4, the maker of the Agresso Education ERP suite, has released a costing and pricing tool for university research projects that was developed in collaboration with the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford.

Agresso Research Costing and Pricing, available as a cloud-based or on-premises solution, is designed to simplify financial aspects of research project management, including full economic costing, pricing, and approvals with the use of "salary information, non-staff costs, facilities costs, inflation assumptions, [full economic costing] research rates," and other data points, according to UNIT4. "Then, applying pre-determined scheme templates which reflect different sponsor rules, Agresso Research Costing and Pricing calculates the price to be charged to the selected sponsor for project activity."

Oxford and Cambridge were early adopters of the software and have partnered with UNIT4 for the last two years to help shape the system into its present form.

"Globally, research is increasingly being elevated to a more strategic activity at universities," said Paul Dampier, MIS director at the University of Cambridge, in a prepared statement. "In addition, organizations are being strongly encouraged to charge the full market price for research. At both Oxford and Cambridge we realized technology could help simplify the process of accurately costing research projects. We approached UNIT4 to develop the solution because of its track record for success and its growing commitment to the research sector."

"It's very much been a partnership with UNIT4," said Glenn Swafford, director of research services at the University of Oxford, also in a prepared statement. "Oxford and Cambridge worked directly with the company to create a solution that calculates a comprehensive full Economic Cost aligned to the Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC). The solution copes well with complex collaborations, multiple funders and different currencies, and will help users to make better decisions."

David Nagel is editorial director, education for 1105 Media's Public Sector Media Group and editor-in-chief of THE Journal. A 22-year publishing veteran, Nagel has led or contributed to dozens of technology, art and business publications.